I tried trashing Adobe Reader 3.05 for the Palm and then I reinstalled Adobe 3.05 reader for the Palm and got all but two of the data mining lecture pdf's onto the Palm. I did this trashing and reinstalling twice more and got all the lectures installed.

I also bought some medical books and software for the Palm this past week.

I spent about an hour moving files off my eMac hard drive onto my external drives. I have also now downloaded all the CD's for Debian 3.1 r2 using BitTorrent to download. I also moved these new ISO's off the eMac onto external drives. Last week I burned about 7 DVD's from Project Gutenberg which contain sample etexts from that etexts project. I then gave these to other active union members at a meeting. I have also uploaded this DVD using BitTorrent so I have done my bit for Project Gutenberg this summer. I have also uploaded some of the Debian iso's as well so have also done some help with Debian this summer.

I am reading ebooks on my PSP lately. The screen and scrolling takes some getting used to. The files are only one large document so there are no bookmarking features. I have been reading my partner Siddhartha the Herman Hesse novel.

I tried installing Debian on my Compaq, in expert mode, which seemed to be about to work, as it let me not install the Yenta socket. I ended up using some new Deban 3.1 r2 CD's and was also able to install a 2.6 kernal. But again after the base install and the reboot, the PCMCIA system and thus the network card was not working. Then the CD drive was not working to well.

I ordered some iSkin products including a lamb skinned case for my PSP. It came with some software called JUMPPSP which was able to convert some pdf's to jpgs but this still would not allow me to read the lecture pdf's. The jpgs were to small to read text on.

JUMPPSP could also not convert my home video to watch on the PSP. I know windows media player can do this or was it some free software made by a Carleton university student. I can't remember which at the moment.

I was able a few days ago to get a google video that I downloaded a few months ago to the PSP by following the file renaming procedure for the PSP outlined at google video. I am using google a little more these days including posting to usenet via goggle.

The JUMPPSP did do one thing that was very useful. It allowed me to transfer bookmark files from my web browsing to the PSP.

This reminded me that I should start a new blog for the systems science program viewable on a PSP screen. But also universally viewable. I could use iBlog or iWeb or simply do it as a second blog on my cyber citizen site using Moveable Type. Or I could just continue to use my studies and more studies blog at blogspot which makes a certain amount of sense. But actually only iBlog and Moveable Type so far make blogs that fit the PSP screen well. Blogger does not make a good sized entry for the PSP.

I am waiting for iSkin to make a silicon keyboard cover for the Macbook which they don't sell yet.

Skype experiences

I have mostly used Skype to talk with my father. He is really the only one who uses Skype with me of people I know. Other labour activists also have Skype accounts but we don't chat that much or use the phone feature. I have called once or twice to the UK two labour activists there. I have been in a few chats with strangers on Skype. Tonight I chatted with a recent graduate in China on that person's lunch break and we plan to chat some more in the future to share info about our respective countries. So the net is still global.

I did not succeed in installing the data mining course lectures pdf's on the Palm.

There is something wrong with the Adobe Reader for the Palm and I was not after quite a few attempts able to install the pdf's from my desktop school folders to the Palm.

I installed a lot of Portable document format files on my Palm. I tested these to make sure they displayed properly and deleted the ones that had problems displaying. I also got the movie The Computer Network to install on my PSP. I also updated my PSP to system 2.7.

I did order a new laptop bag for my Macbook and a new case for my PSP from iSkin. I also ordered a keyboard cover from iSkin for my eMac.

I am going to sell my IBM PC server for 50$ if I can.

I bought a copy of the Linux magazine. I read the last article in this magazine which is an editorial suggesting Apple open source Mac OS X server.

I did on line window shopping for computer accessories this morning. I looked at bags for carrying my Macbook at the Apple store on-line. I also looked at microscopes at that on-line store. I surfed Futureshop and Best Buy looking at data projectors and PSP accessories. I also went to the iSkin web site and looked at the Neo PSP case and also the keyboard cover for the Mac USB keyboard. I did not buy anything for myself. I did buy on ebay an iBook battery for my comrade who bought my iBook. She will pay me back some money later today possibly for this battery but I won't have it in the mail for a week or two.

I have been admitted to the study of systems science at the graduate school level at the University of Ottawa.

I am so happy that I have been accepted into a graduate level program. I have wanted to go to graduate school since 1981. In 1981 I picked Carleton at the undergraduate level over the U of O at the undergraduate level partly because Carleton had a computer science school. In the end, I studied statistics and legal studies at Carleton. But now it is finally on to graduate school at the U of Ottawa to study systems engineering. I am starting to teach myself C++ and will also study some JAVA this summer on my own to prepare for this fall, when I will study SYS5130 Systems Optimization and Management.

I sold the iBook I fixed up. I got money for this sale to cover costs. I micro loaned it to someone from my radical union. I changed the admin account to her name and added an account for her that automatically logs in. So that is one more computer project cleared out of here as I clean up.

Email on the Macbook

I used a second email account with my regular ISP to set up the Mac Mail software on the Macbook. I did this while testing email links on the crystal computing web site. These links still need to be updated on some pages of that site.

I carried the Macbook with me all day but did not use it until I got home.

The powerbook was completely set up then delivered. I also gave a brief one hour lesson in its use.

I updated system 10.3 twice until it was updated to 10.3.9. I then installed Illustrator and tested a zip drive with the laptop. The laptop was delivered about 3:30 PM yesterday and the fellow paid the first of six 50$ payments for it. It was a nice machine to work on. I set up his printer to print from Microsoft office. I got positive feedback from the seller of this laptop. I now only need to pay off the credit card debit incurred by this transaction. I also loaned this fellow a copy of Mac OS X Pather for Dummies as he has not used a Macintosh computer with OS X before. So this book will be his reference and guide book.

The Powerbook is working today. I got it to start up and I am updating the software today. I will take it over to the fellow I bought it for later today.

More bad luck and some good luck with computers

I was trying to install Debian on the PC 325 server but failed. That is more bad luck, as I think this machine which once costs 260$ and functioned as my Fedora machine and Red Hat before that and functioned as my WinNT machine, is now useless and I should throw it out. I do need to clean up around here a bit. The good news is that yesterday I bought another magenta ink cartridge and my network printer is working again. I had some problems with the new magenta cartridge I had bought previously. But the one I bought yesterday seems to be fine. Although it was not properly wrapped from the store. There are so many corrupt businesses out there including the school bookstore that finding quality is hard and not a default event

I may have broken an Apple Powerbook today installing X11. I bought an Apple Powerbook used on ebay and it arrived today. I installed Mac OS X 3.0 Panther and then X11. I then was updating it to Mac OS X 3.9 and it crashed. I may have run out of hard drive space. I can't seem to restart it now.

The new Macbook is getting a few smug marks but nothing permanent. It has also gotten a few coffee stains. I have used iChat, Skype and Second Life on the new Macbook and the eMac. I have also used the new Macbook on Via Rail trains now.

Between falling asleep early Monday morning and now early Tuesday morning another day has passed. I did not use the Macbook today. I did buy it Hotspot access for 4$ per month for 90 minutes per month. This is from the Hotspot brand from Rogers. I did not do much work on this eMac either merely turning on email and web surfing and the various communication softwares such as Fire, Skype, and iChat.

In fact, today I focused on assessing the cost of getting a data projectors, screen, and High Definition cable box. The total cost would be 1500$ at today's prices. I would have to use credit to get these at the moment. I have saved up 50$ so far for this project. By the end of the month I hope to have saved up another 50$.

I did attempt a Fedora Core 5 install on the IBM PC server but this only installed the Symmetric Multiple Processor kernal and my machine won't boot this properly.

I am using iWeb now, Garage Band and iMovie. I also started to use iWork and actually bought a copy of iWork 06 for my family. I believe in the immediate family including my father and brother and their spouses there are five mac users. I also installed Microsoft office X and iWorks 05 on Friday night. This is all on the new MacBook.

With the new MacBook I am trying not to keep too much data on the hard drive. Instead I am burning large amounts of data such as iMovies to DVD and then trashing them on the MacBook. I have also copied all school, volunteer, and work documents from my eMac but did be careful to not copy encrypted documents so that I won't have problems trashing these documents when needed.

I successfully installed WinXP on the Macbook. I phoned microsoft and they gave me another product key for WinXP. The service was excellent. I had some hiccups with installing WinXP and probably needed to retry it six times or more. But within 24 hours of getting the Macbook it was dual boot. Within about 30 hours I had bought the first accessory for it. I bought a foof sleeve for it from a local mac user.

I am trying to win a powerbook on ebay for a friend. We don't want to pay more than 200$ which means buying a lombard just might be possible. We might have to pay a little more than 200$ when we pay the shipping and duty at the border.

I sold a Quadra 800 to a father for his son to learn programming on. I also gave them my copy of ThinkC for the Macintosh and a a ThinkC library book, I also gave a computer self help book titled Learning C on the Macintosh. The first Macintosh book I got was a C programming book to learn C by building a project. I should try that out on my eMac in my office and see if I can learn some more GUI level C. I read the Learning C on the Macintosh book while on a boring shift at work. The father paid me 20$ which paid for the Macbook sleeve.

I received the Macbook laptop today. I began to install software and test out the multimedia features of the new machine. I am just about to install WinXP using Apple's Boot Camp beta software.

Data Projector

I am trying to save up money for a data projector. My goal is to save 1,000 dollars in ten or twelve months and also wait until data projectors are cheaper and do more for the same money.

I did one practice run with SAS data from the Uniform Criminal Reporting data for the USA for the year 1980. I tired to predict officer assaulted by number of all assaults. There was a corelation but there were also violations of assumptions. I used a different part of SAS. In fact, this time I tried the SAS guided analysis module.

I got the Mighty Mouse and it is so good on the eMac I might get a second one for the Macbook as well. They are only about 60$ from the Apple educational store. First I will try out the Macbook trackpad. The Macbook should be here on Monday. If I miss the delivery I will pick it up on Tuesday because I have Tuesday off except for a doctors appointment later in the afternoon. I am though working on Monday for one hour in the afternoon.

I am now tempted to buy a TV that will display computer screens with VGA connections.

Gossip and pros and cons of multifunction tools.

I don't usually write about other people and I try not to gossip about people. But tonight I over heard a guy with his girl friend describing his computer tool kit and all it could do. It seems he was enamoured by his computers and relating this to his girl friend. I think he was trying to associate his love of computers with his love of his friend. I don't think he was fully aware of the effect he was having on his friend.

Anyway I am also shopping for tools at the moment but the only computer hardware tool I am thinking about and have been thinking about this tool for years is the Swiss Army Cybertool. There is a store that sells this locally for 75$. But basically this is some sort of fantasy of mine to have this tool always at the ready for repairing computers. In fact, I have all the tools on this swiss army knife as single tools and in some ways having screw drivers and a nut drivers as single tools is better than having these multifunction tools. The multifunction tools may allow one to carry many tools in a smaller package but the grip and strenght one can transfer to the twist is not as a strong on a multifunction tool, as when one has the same screw driver on a single tool. The tools I am mostly looking for at the moment are carpentry tools. In fact I am thinking of buying a circular saw.

I ordered a new Macbook computer on-line and it has now shipped. I am looking forward to increased functionality in this computer. It is new and has only been on the market for a few weeks. It has a video camera built in. I am really looking forward to that device. It also has a remote control so I can do projections and slide shows away from the machine. It will burn DVD's and CD's. It also has iLife 06 and I want to try out iWeb a new software I have been hearing about although what I have heard has been critical of iWeb. I also will be able to run bootcamp and thus WinXP on this mac. I also was able to afford a Mighty Mouse which I have been meaning to buy for some time now.

I seem to have lost my WinNT outlook express mail.

I am downloading 745 MB of compressed SAS and ASCII files of crime data from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data a US clearing house on mostly US crime data. I am going to use this data in SAS and may be design some statistical learning problems and practices with this data.

I am getting a Macbook computer. The specs of the Macbook are here http://www.apple.com/macbook/specs.html.

I am getting a Macbook as a graduation present and am just about to order it on-line.

I had trouble installing Fedora and Debian on the IBM PC 325 server. I even after this trouble tried to give this computer away to a computer charity project but they could not use it so turned down my offer.

I have gotten some Panther disks and installed that successfully on the old iBook. I then was able to install X windows and then R, TexShop, and Neo Office. The iBook is working ok but I am not using it to store email but instead doing web based email.

I got Win2K installed on the Intellistation but can not get the ethernet drivers installed. So my friend has the Intellistation but it can not connect to the net yet. May be we should installed an ethernet card in his computer.

Changing the machines around here

I installed Win2K on the Intellistation and wipped out the WinXP and Debian 3.1 operating systems on the that computer. I did back up my school work on the WinXP side first. I am selling the Intellistation to a friend and this computer came with a license for Win2K so I am putting that back on it.

The other IBM I have the PC 325 server has also been backed up. The files on the WinNT were backed up last month and I backed up the Fedora core 3 files last night. I was ready to install Fedora core 5 last night but the downloads or CD's had errors on them so I needed to re-download the iso images and they are almost all downloaded this morning. I willl be burning them to cd before lunch this morning.

I am just downloading Fedora core 5 the latest Fedora core release. Fedora core is a free linux operating system. I am installing it after I download it and burn it to CD's. There are five CD's. I have backed up all the data on the computer I am going to install this operating system on. I will no longer have a WinNT or Fedora core 3 machine after this.

I spent a little time this morning exploring a google search on my name. I also did my usual school web page surfing, reading the school's promotions magazine. I also visited a web site for my old high school a few times. Once this morning when I posted something and then once earlier this week I think Monday morning I visited this high school web site.

I am helped someone with her email. She hired me to teach her email. I printed some documents to help her learn how to use email.

Update

I only really configured her email. I also taught her a little but very little about outlook express.

The clamshell iBook now has 544 MB of RAM. As far as my research will tell me this is the maximum amount of RAM I can run in this model iBook.

My brother is sending me his family pack of Panther CD's for the iBook clamshell so I can then run X windows and stuff like R and Open Office.

I came up with this idea in a short workshop for preparedness in home emergencies.

here is my tip


It is recommended that for emergencies you have photo's of people you live with on hand, i.e. in your disaster kit that you take with you when you evacuate. This way if someone like a kid is missing the search team can see what your relatives look like. You should also have copies of important documents. May be you can scan birth certificates or other ID documents but then you risk losing this to data thieves but likewise you could lose paper copies too. So everything is digital and might fit on a cheap these days 8 MB or 16 MB compact flash card. These might work in any camera you find at the disaster reception centre so you can access them. You don't really need a digital camera to make this compact flash card as there are 20 dollar card readers you can transfer the data with and then test it in someone else's camera and you are good to go.

Debian laptop project report

I have been working on this laptop for about 6 months now. I first installed Debian 3.0 and got that working but on that install the terminal program, in other words the command line could not do edit menu functions. So I had to install a more recent version of Debian. For this I needed a larger hard drive. I spent about 40 dollars buying a used 6 GB drive which turned out to be a bit wonky so I used a 3.2 GB drive I had taken out of an original iBook. In the last two days I finally installed Debian 3.1 and just last night installed R and tested it out with some R code from a school assignment from last winter 2005. After changing some directory paths to fit linux directory structures, and where I had copied the school course folder too, I was successful running R and getting one graphic. So now I am ready to write my code for my talk on R and can run it in Linux on this pentium 1 laptop and even then project this at a meeting. I am my code.

Debian 3.1 r 1 installed successfully

I was finally after numerous attempts able to install Debian 3.1 r 1a on the Compaq pentium 1 laptop. I will now need to see if I can get R installed and also project the screen of this laptop.

I can not install X windows on the iBook. I am tempted to upgrade to Panther. But for now I am broke so no new computer projects that cost money. Also about installing Debian 3.1 on the Compaq the pcmcia card does not boot when restarting after the base system has been installed and the computer reboots. I am having to install packages from CD's. I am attempting a Debian 3.1 install with the 3.2 GB hard drive that was originally in the iBook. I may have a little more time tonight/this morning to try this out.

The Jaguar Mac OS X 10.2 disks arrived. I just completed installing this OS on my iBook and am now updating the software. I also received a 60GB notebook drive that I will save for a future notebook project perhaps a Thinkpad dual boot Linux WinXP project this summer to use in grad school.

The Iomgea USB drive has been cleaned off and school work folders have been placed on that drive. I still need to make the third copies of some of the back up DVD's from that project. I did empty the trash from that project mostly and now have 60GB free on the eMac 2 hard drive. I will be trying to free another 20 GB still after this project is done. I freed 25 GB so far.

Speaking of hard drive space I am now able to make movies so may need even more hard drive space to store these movies.

The DVD's of the USB drive are almost complete now and I will be deleting a lot of files shortly. I have made at least one copy of each of the 6 disks. I will now delete everything on this USB drive using Windows to do the deleting. I will then install a copy of my school work folder. I will also delete the burn folders on the eMac after I am done. This should restore about 35GB of free hard drive space to the eMac2.

A larger hard drive is installed now on the iBook

I chose to install the 40GB Thinkpad T30 drive on the iBook. I used this web site (http://www.ifixit.com/) to do the disassembly and assembly. I lost one screw at the half way point but found it and took the iBook apart again and put the screw back in. Now I can use the 60GB drive on an IBM Thinkpad project this summer. So this part of the iBook upgrade is completed. The other three steps include adding more RAM and I did buy a 512 PC133 laptop chip for the iBook. I also need to install the Mac OS X. I also am going to replace the top and track pad with a top and track pad in better condition. So this project is coming along. Then after all that is done comes software. I asked for a copy of Virtual PC for the Mac from the computer systems manager at work. Then I will install SAS. I will also install R on this machine. I will have to install a printer and Open Office too. So still more to do with this machine.

Today's back up the 20GB Iomega USB drive

I am just backing up my USB portable drive to DVD. This might take a few hours. This is just to make certain all these files are backed up. I will make two copies and then delete the burn folders that I am using on my eMac2. Then I will delete everything from the USB drive.

I was able to import my WinNT email to my Intellistation copy of Outlook Express and today imported this email to Netscape 7.0 and have just copied this mail local folder from Netscape 7.0 on the Intellistation to the USB drive. I am going to use the USB drive to transfer this old WinNT email to the eMac and then delete everything from the USB drive.

I imported my Safari book marks as one html page to the iBook.

I am posting this from the iBook to test it out. It seems to work fine.

I was able to win a 60 GB hard drive for the iBook. I had to buy a Torx T8 screwdriver for taking apart the iBook. I also got a 128 MB RAM chip for the Compaq Presario 1210.

I just made the last of my annual back up DVD's and am making a second copy of the movie I made yesterday.

I just made the last copies of three disks for my annual back ups. I now must send 5 DVD's off site to a family member to save them for me until next year. I also accessed one DVD today on another computer running Linux and the DVD is fine and I could open Open Office files on the Linux desktop no problem. I can also do some R code on Debian 3.1 no problem with Open Office. Thus when I get the 6 GB laptop hard drive I bought through ebay I will use it in the Compaq Presario 1210 and this time install Debian 3.1 on the Presario 1210. I also am just making a second copy of the movie I made yesterday. I am also thinking now of buying and setting up another USB external drive for storing music and video and have been window shopping on the web this morning to do this.

Updates

The email from the WinNT machine has been transfered to the copy of outlook express on the Intellistation. I will now transfer this to a netscape email folder and then transfer that to the eMac 2 mail application with an import. I am not sure how I will transfer the netscape mail folder yet.

The movie I downloaded from google video to use on my PSP does not work on the PSP. I need to research this more.

I have not yet backed up the Fedora core 3 user files.

The back up DVD's I made are all done now except the off site copies of the Thinkpad. Speaking of Thinkpads I will be buying a new one in July.

My R talk is not getting worked on yet. But I am starting to practice with SAS using the textbook data for my experimental design course. I am also reading some 1971 book on response surfaces this morning.

My planned book on computer self help for community development and organizing is getting another start. At least I have been encouraged to start to write it again.

iBook cleanup

The owner of the iBook I bought from, left all her files on this laptop. I did not look at them beyond seeing the names of some of the files.

1. The first step in cleaning this iBook was to get the password from the previous owner,
2. and her permission to delete all the files. I then deleted all the files.
3. Then using her password I created a second admin account for myself and deleted her account.
4. I could then set up networking.
5. The next step was software updating. This computer had been set at Unix time zero in other words January 1st 1970. Also it had not been updated from 10.2 at all. I could not update automatically because of hard drive space limitations. So I had to delete Classic versions of outlook express, netscape, and explorer to get some more space. I also had to delete the deleted user account. I needed to reboot a number of times to get the true available free space after emptying the trash.
6. I could still not install updates automatically and still this morning can not do this. So I downloaded the 10.2.8 update to the desktop and then used installer to install it.
7. After this was done I restarted software update again and got about 6 security updates.
8. I then continued to update software like Java, Safari, iCal, iTunes, and Quicktime.

I am now done and will have to do similar updating when I install a new hard drive and install a fresh copy of Jaguar on a larger new hard drive.

I have gotten the new top and track pad on ebay. The power adapter arrived yesterday which is why I could start working on this project today. I now need to find another laptop hard drive that is much larger than the little 3GB drive I have in there now. I will also have to do the replacement which means I need a Torx T8 screwdriver. Then I must upgrade the RAM but I am not sure if I want to spend 100$ on the 512 MB ram or spend less for a 256 MB ram chip.

Success with networking

I was able to get into a Mac running OSX over a network from a windows machine. Before this on my old eMac and my Thinkpad T30 I would have to get into the Thinkpad running WinXP by logging in from the Mac. This time I logged into the Mac on my WinNT box. I was trying to gather all the files off the WinNT box as I retire it. I had gotten all the files off it before using Zip disks and am still set up for zip disks off this WinNT machine. But this time I used the Mac public folder and drop box in this folder to transfer all the files and also the Outlook Express store folder over to the eMac. The Outlook Express folder was slightly too large for a zip disk so I have now solved this problem. Now I can burn this data to CD and store it away.

This started with a plan to delete the Fedora core 4 iso disks on my eMac desktop. First I am going to burn one copy of the four Fedora core 4 iso disks which I am almost finished doing. Then I will delete them. I thought I would upgrade the Fedora core on the IBM PC server and this time wipe out the WinNT. All I really need to do now is back up the old Fedora Core 3 files that I have made and then I can wipe out the Fedora core 3 too. Then I can sell or give away this old IBM PC server.

I also want to restore the email from the WinNT box into my eMac. To do this I will burn the WinNT back up data on the eMac. I will then import the outlook files to my Intellistation copy of Outlook Express. Then I can worry about getting the email to the Mac from there. I also plan to sell the Intellistation at the end of April after my SAS home work is done.

Annual DVD back ups.

I guess this could be called annual DVD backs ups. I made two back up DVD's in three copies of each for the Documents folder on my main computer the eMac2. I will also be making three back up DVD's of my old Thinkpad T30 files. These will also be copied three times each. Then I will be making some back up DVD's for my old eMac by copying folders over ethernet to the new eMac for burning.

I found "secure empty trash" on my Mac does a better job of emptying the trash of my encrypted files. At least, I experimented and found out. I was developing a bit of repetitive stain injury emptying the trash when the process would stop at each encrypted file and ask for a click to continue. My arm is better now although the memory of the pain is still there cautioning my use of the mouse.

I am installing a movie on the PSP. I was told of this movie by Internet researcher Martin Dodge in an email to the AoIR discussing email list. The English wikipedia entry for this movie is here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Networks:_The_Heralds_of_Resource_Sharing The cite for the movie is King, Steven. Computer Networks - The Heralds of Resource Sharing (Boston, Mass.: MIT, 1972) Length: 30 min 22 sec, Apr 7, 2006 from google video (cited April 9th, 2006). It is on google video for watching or downloading to PC, Mac, iPod video, or PSP. Although the movie may be of significance it featues only male talking heads with women depicted as computer operators. So it is old school sexism at heart.

I am finally upgrading the parts for my iBook and may be able to restore the top and track pad to mint condition as well. It is a bit costly but I may use my old IBM Thinkpad T30 40 GB hard drive for the upgrade. Other than that the Mac OS 10.2 should cost about 30$ and a 256 MB PC 133 laptop RAM chip will also not cost more than 30$. Not sure what I should pay for the new top; but more than 20$ it will cost.

I am just about to burn some DVD's of the documents folder on my eMac. It may take 2 DVD's to back up everything except the old Thinkpad T30. The Thinkpad T30 will need 3 or 4 DVD's. So my total might be 6 DVD's.

I worked in the SAS software on a large school assignment in experimental design. I worked for about 8 hours straight then rested four hours and then another 2 hours. I got this final term work done on Tuesday. I now have a take home exam in this experimental design course. The exam will last 3 days and I can use any book or other reference but I can not use other people to help me.

Speaking of statistics I am also writing a talk on R the open source statistical software/language. I need to do some more work writing this talk and start testing some code and of course writing some code. I will give the talk at the Ottawa Carleton Linux user group meeting in May if I can get it done.

The iBook blueberry 300 Mhz specs

Well the iBook I got did not come with a functioning power adapter so I have had to buy one of those for it. I did get it working at the Mac Group store wth their power adapter and it is a 300 MHz, 96 MB RAM and 3 GB hard drive. The Mac Group tell me it is very difficult, maybe an hour and half work to replace the hard drive. The memory can be placed in and upgraded with no real problem. So the question is how much money do I want to spend on this beast? So far I have had to cut down my plans for a really large hard drive like 80GB. I am probably limited to 20GB. In terms of RAM I can put in as large as 512 MB but this costs about 100$ almost half of the price of the laptop itself. Whereas a more modest 256 MB chips is only about 30$. So far I have spent about 45$ buying the powr adapter. I can stop here with just the power adapter for now. May be buy the 256 MB RAM. But I might also buy a replacement top and trackpad as the iBook is rather scratched up. But a new hard drive is not an option right now.

The clamshell iBook is finally in my city. I am just going to the UPS depot to pick it up in the next few hours. I will post the specs on this laptop later tonight when I boot it up and see the about this mac details/screen.

My computers are now running well. In terms of RAM my new eMac has 1 GB of RAM. My old eMac has had 768 MB of RAM from the beginning. My new Intellistation now has 768 MB RAM as well.

I backed up iTunes to 4 DVD's. I need to buy some DVD -R disks to make viewable videos. The DVD +R disks don't work for this. I will spend 35 dollars to get 100 blank disks. I made a DVD slide show using iDVD on the eMac.

I was again not able to install Debian on the Virtual PC running on the eMac. But this time I tried using the video settings taken from the system information in Win2K. X worked better but would still not work perfectly.

I did a few hours of paid web master work this past weekend. I am also learning about creative commons licenses for my new web site. I will add one later today or this week.

I am just backing up the documents folder and mail folder on my new eMac to an external hard drive. This is a mid month back up process. There is a 250 GB hard drive one sale right now, I was thinking of buying but my spending is really excessive now on computer equipment I will wait before buying the next external hard drive. I did not buy a 10$ firewire cable today for the new camcorder. I need to temper my spending.

I won the RAM and probably saved 100$ on buying this RAM by buying it on ebay.

I am building a new web space using Dreamweaver MMX and hosting it at yahoo small business web hosting. I also have my own moveable type blog on this site. I made an index page and one internal page now and started the blog. I will use the site for creative design but will stick with a minimalist style both technically and graphically. I might also have time to explore the server side technologies I can use with this hosting deal. But it will also be used for creative academic writing and has a very cute and already creative domain name. It is at http://www.cyborgcitizen.org/. Now isn't that a creative name? Ok may be not but it sure wasn't just my idea for a name. I borrowed it from various scholars of science and technology studies in particular Donna Haraway. I also used the creative commons license to copyright it and this is my first use of this license.

Getting more memory for the Intellistation statistical workstation from ebay.

I did a little surfing of ebay and found an offer of 640MB of PC133 RAM. I would then have about 996 MB of RAM in my statistical workstation. I should stop using this workstation for web mastering and make it a more dedicated machine for only statistics. Speaking of which I have some SAS homework to do for this week and this coming weekend and the beginning of next week. I also was able to install SAS 9.1.3 on my eMac on the Win2K partition. SAS we get for free from school will only work on UNIX or Windows. That is why to get SAS working on my Macintosh I need to install it on the Win2K operating system running in Virtual PC on my eMac. Also in statistics I have to prepare an hour long talk on using R for our local linux users group. I should try to write the basic outline tonight but also have some statistics homework grading to do today.

Setting up regular book marks on a new computer

I booted up the new Intellistation to test web pages I was working on this past week. I started in Debian with Mozilla to add bookmarks to sites I control the content for. In other words I bookmarked my own sites and other sites where I am a web master, web designer, web content writer, etc. etc.. This is routine task I have done many times.

I am posting this on my Presario 1210 running a fresh
install of Debian 3.0 with KDE 2.2.2. I finally got KDE installed again but my screen resolution is 600X800 rather than finer.

I updated the Debian 3.1. I then played an unsuccessful game of GNU GO. I left that machine on.

I messed up the Debian laptop with installing using dselect. The problem was forseeable. I installed to much software and ran out of hard drive space. I am now trying to install Red Hat 9 on this machine for a change. I am just checking the integrity of my two CD's with Red Hat 9 on them. I lost one file from a word processor about email list management I had written on this laptop. In other words I have erased the Debian 3.0 woody on this laptop. While I install I think I will update my WinXP and my Debian 3.1 and also my Fedora core 3. It would be nice to get these done today.

Almost all machines are up to date with the right software

I updated my WinXP with dot net stuff. I also updated my Debian 3.1 software using dselect and apt. These were both on the Intellistation. I also updated my old eMac in its new location in the office. The PSP is running the latest OS. The iPod and the Palm are also up to date. I think only the Fedora and the Win NT mahine may need to be updated at the moment. I believe the Win2k on the eMac is up to date but I wil just check that again. I should also use my new found knowledge of apt directories to up date my Debian 3.0 laptop.

I needed to use SAS so booted up my Intellistation and ran SAS. I quickly wrote some SAS code for some homework. I left the computer running in the other room. I will now save my SAS files, print the output window and turn the machine off.

I did get win2K working on the eMac and am now trying to get Debian 3.1 installed on the eMac.

I am installing fink-0.24.12 on my eMac. I need to update X Code to 2.2 and I now have the gcc 4.0 compiler installed.

My eMac is working fine and the only computer I use constantly everyday.

I did not turn on any of my linux computers today. I read a little of Linux magazine. I also added some GNU software books at Amazon to buy later. I mostly have been working with my iPod using the iTalk microphone. I also have left my eMac on for more than a day now. I did use my Palm with Word To Go and also the Snapper email software. I looked into buying a Jazz drive and stuff for that on ebay.ca. I also looked into getting a new larger 3 GB hard drive for my Compaq laptop also on ebay.ca. I also looked at RAM prices for the Intellistation.

I changed the CD drive in the Intellistation and put in a DVD drive. I was then able to mount the Debian 3.1 r 1 net install disk and now have Debian 3.1 r 1 installed and working fine. I spent the last few hours surfing ebay.ca using this Debian desktop.

I got Win2K installed on the Virtual PC on the Mac and installed Adobe Reader and Yahoo Messenger. I can use voice now on this Mac with Yahoo Messenger by using the Virtual PC Win2K to run Yahoo Messenger Windows version. So that was a success.

I need a 2 or 3 or 4 GB hard drive for my Linux laptop and then I need to install Debian again. But this can wait. It is just that the old hard drive in the Debian laptop is making noises and is likely to fail soon.

I tried to post to my studies blog but because that blog is still considered a spam blog it needs word verification which this laptop could not handle. Or Blogger's word verification uses some none standard type of cookie of something. So I spent the last 45 minutes transfering the post to Kword then a floppy then uploading the floppy to the intellistation and then posting in Internet explorer in WinXP. I also cleaned up under my living room desk.

I am posting this from my Linux laptop. I have had enough installing Linux for the day and decided to use Linux more. So this post is an effort to do one of my daily computer activities in Linux.

I received a copy of Virtual PC for the Mac but so far have not been able to install an operating system inside the Virtual PC. I will make another try this morning after trying three different WinXP disks and Debian 3.1 r1. I am now trying my Win2000 disk. Again this should be a legal copy of Win2000.

My problems with my Linux install are now just X. I need to configure X to work still. I have no useable screens as my error message. I have so far been unable to google a configuration file. I have found some Nvidia drivers but could not install them for this older kernal. I have a 2.2 kernal instead of the current 2.6 kernal. May be even 2.7 is the current kernal.

I now know how to install Woody only and am doing this overnight.

I reached out to the local Linux novice help email list and got some help with my Linux install and I am also doing this over night. My other computers are fine now. My new eMac gets the most use. My new IBM works fine for WinXP and it is this machine I am also trying to install Linux on. My palm is working fine but not getting as much use as my Palms have in the past. My iPod is also working fine. I am not using my PSP much but did try to get further in the Sims 2 game a week ago. I burnt a CD of songs for my wife and we paid for these songs.

All this computer tinkering keeps me from doing my school work. I know this is true because as soon as I sucessfully completed the SAS install and then the Linux install I almost immediately devoted my time to my homework until it got done. So my computter tinkering was keeping me from doing my school homework. It was also highly frustating and now that I have Xandros Linux installed I realise that this free version of Xandors is very limited and I may try to install Debian Woody again or Fedora core 4. Install, install, I am an install junkie and hardly spend much time actually working in Linux. Actually the problems is I like Woody but not sure I can keep it updated with out going into Sarge and I can't seem to install Sarge with net disks and as I said with no DVD drive on the intellistation I can't use the DVD's I made of Sarge.

Success Xandros installs ok

I was able to install a Xandros Linux desktop. I was not able to watch a DVD though because actually this computer does not have a DVD drive installed. I have a spare DVD drive but I am not up to installing that right now.

I was thinking about trying a different flavour of Linux on the Intellistation and am now trying a Xandros install. It is almost done and I will see if it works ok. I went with a swap partition of almost 2 GB so I can install some more RAM on the Intellistation. It needs PC133 RAM chips which I figure must be cheap these days. I will upgrade this system to 1 GB as soon as I can afford the extra RAM. Always upgrading. Just for fun if the Xandros installs with no issues I will watch the third Matrix film on the intellistation using Xandros starting at 3:30 AM.

I am having trouble mounting CD's made on my Mac on the new refurbished IBM Intellistation. I only seem to be able to get the Debian 3.0 woody CD to work. But then when I download newer Debian 3.1 Sarge software the boot proccess stops at Lilo only producing the letters LI in the upper left corner and then freezing. I am re trying this again and again. Right now I am trying it with out a network connection. I should stop this and start again with Debian 3.0 without ftp apt sources just security updates butthe main system just from the CD.

Success installing SAS, finally after about 20 attempts.

I first had an error because the firmware on my new refurbished computers CDROM had not been updated. I updated it yesterday morning or late Thursday night. Once that was solved I found the install mostly worked or got through more of the proccess. But the SAS install as many softwares is an all or nothing process involving 9 CD's. In the end I could not choose extra language support because a file for that option was on a part of a CD that is damaged. After unselecting that language support option the installation worked. I will report the damaged CD to the school hardware services clerk when I take the disks back to school on Monday.

I now have a functioning SAS workstation. I don't have any SAS homework yet but will have some later in the term.

I bought a refurbished IBM Intellistation Pro E. It has a 64 MB video card. I installed WinXP pro on it as soon as I got it. I am still trying to install SAS on the windows. I split the drive in half and am this morning continuing to try to install Debian Linux on the second half. SAS gave me problems as is Linux giving me problems. I have the SAS disks borrowed from school for another two days. I should stop this computer tinkering and get some school work done. But I have been reading all morning while the computer downloads linux software.

I just read half of a study into computer war gaming. I also have been reading about child poverty and statistics and about modern warfare in terms of body hardening and body injury. I finished a book on the rule of law that I started to read this summer after studying public law with Christian Jackel. I also finished a book titled Techno Feminism.

The new computer is basically supposed to be a windows box for doing windows only software. I did need to do some firmware upgrade on the CDROM. I will stop the Linux tinkering now at 3:36 and try the SAS install a few more times. My reason for buying this computer was to be able to run SAS at home for school work.

This is my test post using a blogger widget by June Tate

I am using a blogger posting widget designed by June Tate. it is licenced under the GPL as free sofwtare. I am test posting this as a test of this widget. I have been playing with widgets for a little while tonight.

I made a back up DVD of the Documents folder on my eMac. I am finding the eMac working fine. My Palm is also fine. My fedora computer is fine. My iPod is fine. My new printer is fine.

I am getting an IBM Intellistation Pro E with a pentium IV chip, 256MB RAM, a 40GB hard drive and CD. This windows computer will be for running SAS. I will also installl Debian 3.1 on this computer and set up things like emacs, R, Octave, GSL and MatLab on the Linux side.

I am using the new eMac and it is working fine. It is also working with the new printer fine.

My palm can download xls files from its wireless phone connection but can not open them right away. I will try some techniques with this palm to open them today. Otherwise I will transfer the files to the eMac.

I managed to get the new eMac working ok now with all the email it received between December 16-January 6th. I still need to migrate some folders, email and files from the old eMac. I also have to reinstall applications. I have installed X11, Neooffice 1.2 beta, Adobe Reader 7.0.2, Adobe Reader for the Plam 3.05 and X-Code. I will now reinstall Chit Chat and then chat at Yahoo.

Success with the new Mac OS X install.

I seem to have all the preferences imported now. All my Safari bookmarks from my old eMac are imported and all my keychain items. Thus Safari logged into Blogspot no problem. I also imported my iCal and Address book from my old eMac. I am of course waiting for my email to be imported. I will now as the next step import my Music folder to iTunes but from the application itself.

I did a rough size comparisom using Get Info on the new eMac and then only needed to re back up the Music folder. I then started an erase and install on the new eMac. This install is going on now and I am writing this from my PC 325 using Mozilla.

I was not yet able to use the new Brother printer with the Fedora machine because the Fedora does not have the drivers for the MCF 420cn.

I will spend the rest of this morning getting the new eMac set up. This time I will not do a Firewire transfer of user accounts. I will in fact only transfer the Documents, Music, and Mail folders using a USB external hard drive. For the Music and Mail folders I will import these via the applications themselves for the documents folder I will do a simple copy operation using the Finder.

About backing up the new eMac and iPod: I lost two or three voice memos from this year. I am satistfied with the rest of the iTunes back up now. I am just using an ethernet connection now from the old eMac to the new eMac to copy the mail folder from the new eMac to the USB drive connected to the old eMac. But this is taking too long so I am going to connect the USB drive to the new eMac and make the mail folder copy that way. But first I have to wait until I have finished using the USB drive on the old eMac where I am duplicating the documents folder for file management reasons. When this is done and the mail folder is backed up, I will reinstall Mac OS X on the new eMac.

After the iTunes is backed up I will copy the Mac Mail folder one more time to the USB external drive and then I will consider the new eMac backed up and attempt a fresh install of Mac OS X. I would like to have the back up done by midnight and the install done by 4 AM Monday. I would like to be using the new eMac again by 8 AM Monday.

The iTunes on the new eMac is backed up to a DVD now. This is only a back up of purchased songs and voice memos. I will attempt one or two more updates of the iPod to get a new voice memo off the iPod then do another back up to DVD. Then I will consider iTunes on the new eMac backed up.

After resetting the IP address for the printer, it is still printing fine. I will check the Fedora computer on it later tonight. Right now the Fedora computer prints to the Epson 440 via a parallel cable which comes out of an Iomega zip drive 100 MB parallel drive plugged into the computer the IBM PC325. After this test if successful I will have two printers for the Fedora computer. I also have two printers now for the eMac. This is robust redundency for printing.